The more I learn about data, the more I think we should restrain ourselves, as data collectors.

Let´s go back to March 27, 1943. The Dutch resistance lead by Gerrit van der Veen raids the municipal register of Amsterdam and destroys it. They want to get rid of this particular data collection because it was too easy for the occupying Germans to identify the 70.000 Jewish citizens in Amsterdam. The database simply had too much information.

The Dutch civil registration the day after the attack in 1943

Today, this information is to be found in many places. Consider such an innocent piece of data collection as a supermarket loyalty card. It can predict your religious background, detecting a pattern when you buy kosher food only.

We leave traces of our identity everywhere. Although I believe in optimizing customer experience by collecting the right data, we have to make sure we only collect the essential data. I admit I am torn between these opposing needs: better customer experience through profiling on the one hand, and anonymity for protection against evil doers on the other.

Another - much smaller - example of collecting too much information is the Daily Telegraph. They installed (and later removed) workplace monitors this week to see whether newspaper staff were at their desks by using heat and motion sensors, BuzzFeed News has learned. For what?

Unlike mere SSL encryption, which hides the content of the site a web visitor is accessing, the used Tor hidden service would ensure that even the fact that the reader visited ProPublica’s website would be hidden from an eavesdropper or Internet service provider.

To most this sounds like an unnecessary level of paranoia to go through to read the news. But last year when ProPublica was working on a report about Chinese online censorship, and wanted to make sure the reporting was itself safe to visit for Chinese readers. This is as relevant in 2016, as it was in 1943.

Although collecting data can do great things, it is important - in my view - to restrain ourselves to the information we really need to achieve our business goals. And we must never forget our societal goals. I like Propublica’s idea of offering complete anonymity as an alternative. Everyone should have the ability to decide what types of metadata they leave behind.

Using Slack To Engage Subscribers

On a much lighter note, here is Podcast with Jessica Lessin who started The Information, a Silicon Valley news site that relies on $399 annual subscriptions. Their eight-person team produces two deeply reported pieces a day. With thousands of subscribers, she says, quality stories breed quality subscribers.

Go to 19:11 minutes, if you want to hear her talk about a Slack team for their (influential) subscriber community. Subscribers are discussing with each other, thus involving their subscription community with the content. Typically Sillicon Valley, you might say. A look into the future, I say.

Something else. In the podcast Lessin is worried that publishers often miss an essential reality: “Facebook doesn’t care about the media world, and the media world thinks it does,” she said. It just wants ways to get people to stay on its platform, whether that’s gaming or news articles. Meanwhile The Onion laughs at publishing executives making pilgrimages to Facebook to offer content at the feet of Mark Zuckerberg. Not sure I agree, but definitely quite witty.

When people ask me what I mean by great customer experience, I say: to treat everybody with sincere attention. Rarely does it come across what I truly mean. Well, this short film explains what I mean. Sincere attention from one person to the other. Filmmakers Philip Brink and Marieke van der Velden invited tourists and refugees on the Greek island of Lesbos to talk one another about life (23 minutes).

More on refugees. In Germany they started a paper. Their editor in chief: “You have to give dignity to people, especially to refugees. They are survivors, they are victims of violence and they all have this suffering inside. We give them the possibility to hear good stories that happen in their community.”
The paper also covers news in Syria. Link

I follow third party content distribution closely. Al Jazeera’s 15-month-old AJ+ has some impressive results. No website. Building audiences directly on Facebook. Their approach is audience-focused. Interesting article. Link

Even in the digital age home distribution of paper remains a key link between newspapers and their readers (thanks @freekstaps). About half of the audience is solely relying on paper, this US study shows. Link